In the wake of the ongoing ‘pothole epidemic’ Nexus Vehicle Rental, the UK’s leading tech driven business mobility provider, has revealed a sharp increase in the number of business drivers claiming damages attributed to potholes.
Nexus’ unique rental booking and management information platform, IRIS, holds customer data showing vehicle damage attributed to potholes has risen by 40% since 2016. In just the first four months of this year, Nexus has already processed 1,488 wheel and tyre related damage claims, which customers link to rising road damages.
David Brennan, CEO at Nexus Vehicle Rental, said: “Although it was a particularly harsh winter this year, if the number of pothole related incidents perpetuate at the current rate, we’re expecting to process double the number of damage claims as last year, as our rising numbers of hired vehicles encounter damaged roads. Quite frankly this is unacceptable to us, our customers, suppliers and insurers.
“We provide access to the UK’s largest vehicle supply chain of 550,000 vehicles across 2,000 UK locations but we don’t actually own any assets. Due to this, our rental technology serves to protect our customers and ensures any damages invoiced to them are fair – we automatically invalidate around 30% of damage claims which leads to cost savings for our customers.”
“Our primary objective is to offer a seamless mobility service and potholes are plaguing our roads through a combination of spending cuts and extreme weather. Although the DfT Pothole Action Fund claims to pledge £296m to fixing the issue, we want to see guarantees that this is spent effectively to prevent our roads from deteriorating further, causing damaging to vehicles and disruption to journeys.”
The Department for Transport (DfT) has recently pledged £6bn to local councils in England to improve roads with a £296m Pothole Action Fund to address six million potholes.
The Asphalt Industry Alliance claims 40,000 miles of road need to be repaired with the number of potholes being filled falling year-on-year.
This precedes the AA’s recent report claiming pothole damage is costing insurers almost £1m a month in repairs. It’s survey also shows 88% of drivers feel road quality has declined since 2008.
Nexus customer data showing number of pothole related incidents:
| Year | Total number of pothole related damage claims | Monthly number of pothole related damage claims | Year-on-year increase per percentage of accidents |
| 2013 | 1,696 | 141 | – |
| 2014 | 2,226 | 185 | +38% |
| 2015 | 2,267 | 188 | 0% |
| 2016 | 2,135 | 178 | -17% |
| 2017 | 2,556 | 213 | +13% |
| 2018* | 4,464 (1,488 Jan-Apr 2018) | 372 | +24% |
